I've been following this Substack since November - I was born in AridoAmerica and I already believed in cyclical history along the lines of Spengler and Toynbee, so naturally your ideas about what kind of "high culture" is arising in my homeland are quite interesting. Keep it up!
I do find a bit more to disagree with in this post than your others, though. I think you are spot on about Europe post-1945 (and especially post-1989) having contented itself with being a sort of outpost of the United States, militarily weak and aping American culture. And yet I don't foresee this as being nearly as long-lasting of a state of affairs as it was in Latin America (where it ran from 1898 to the present.) The problem is that there are other people besides the US who want to dominate Europe - as in fact Russia is trying to do right now by invading Ukraine, and expansionist Middle Eastern or North African countries may soon do. And the US has shown that it is not actually up to committing the amount of military force that would be needed to keep these rivals out of a weak and mostly-demilitarized Europe.
I wrote an article at my own Substack a few months ago called "The Poland Paradox: How Faraway Allies Make Small Countries Less Safe."
The gist of it is that it's a bad idea for a small country, fearing conquest by a larger neighbor, to rely on an alliance with an big country that's a long ways away and only has a marginal interest in preventing the smaller country from getting conquered. (As Poland learned the hard way in 1939-45, and Ukraine is learning now, and Taiwan, South Korea, etc. may soon also learn.) Even if the large country acts for a while like it is very concerned with projecting its power (or defending its values or however you say it) there is just too big of a chance that it will balk when someone else challenges it for hegemony.
So United States dominance of Europe won't be nearly as long-lasting as US dominance of South America. The geography is just wrong - Europe will indeed be dominated, but it can't be America's sandbox because there are too many other rivals that also want to dominate it.
I think it'll play out with Byzantium camp where they get initially swallowed up, then jolt back to life and is which means some final burst in europe will jolt. I just don't think that time is as near as people say. I've thought about the geographic aspect as well. It should be kept in mind Texas is only 1/3 closer to Colombia than New York to Europe. Not to mention as long as there's a Washington DC and New York in power there will be Atlanticism. American institutions run deep in both Europe and Latin America on some key levels. I also looked at Russia's own demographic structure and it is...not looking good. Especially after this war. Russia while certainly formidable did get bogged down in trench warfare and did expose some deep internal issues. It's worse than Europe proper for birth rates. Meaning that bar groups such as the Arabs or Africans, Europe actually doesn't have a whole lot of threats unless there's a large African migration expansion. I personally do not think the US will be nearly as rapacious to Europe as it was to Latin America, due to what you mention with geography due to this contest factor but also due to a factor of the US as aging itself as well as the stain it left on America the first time. What you'll see is more of the prestigious aspects of Europe get offloaded to the US, deindustrializatuon in europe, US becomes the center of europe continued, then some outside force tears it all down or as the empire truly enters decay. You also won't see coups and banana republics either.
I do however expect the US to be jettisoned from Asia due to there being exterior pushback though for the very reason you state however and your statement is absolutely spot on for that. Don't worry, this is pretty much my only dabble into current geopolitics, but it needed to be stated due to the greco-roman parallels and how this will affect the final years of the American Empire. I'm also noticing a lot of...aridoamerican aspects bubbling up there. Some enviromentalists in the netherlands brought a native american to a protest and talking about indigenization, something that is much more Aridoamerican than european.
Ultimately, what you'll see is retrenchment and a US mostly gone from most of Asia and the Global South. America will hold the empire on these lines for a time, and then lose europe. I don't think its eternal at all.
I've been following this Substack since November - I was born in AridoAmerica and I already believed in cyclical history along the lines of Spengler and Toynbee, so naturally your ideas about what kind of "high culture" is arising in my homeland are quite interesting. Keep it up!
I do find a bit more to disagree with in this post than your others, though. I think you are spot on about Europe post-1945 (and especially post-1989) having contented itself with being a sort of outpost of the United States, militarily weak and aping American culture. And yet I don't foresee this as being nearly as long-lasting of a state of affairs as it was in Latin America (where it ran from 1898 to the present.) The problem is that there are other people besides the US who want to dominate Europe - as in fact Russia is trying to do right now by invading Ukraine, and expansionist Middle Eastern or North African countries may soon do. And the US has shown that it is not actually up to committing the amount of military force that would be needed to keep these rivals out of a weak and mostly-demilitarized Europe.
I wrote an article at my own Substack a few months ago called "The Poland Paradox: How Faraway Allies Make Small Countries Less Safe."
https://twilightpatriot.substack.com/p/the-poland-paradox
The gist of it is that it's a bad idea for a small country, fearing conquest by a larger neighbor, to rely on an alliance with an big country that's a long ways away and only has a marginal interest in preventing the smaller country from getting conquered. (As Poland learned the hard way in 1939-45, and Ukraine is learning now, and Taiwan, South Korea, etc. may soon also learn.) Even if the large country acts for a while like it is very concerned with projecting its power (or defending its values or however you say it) there is just too big of a chance that it will balk when someone else challenges it for hegemony.
So United States dominance of Europe won't be nearly as long-lasting as US dominance of South America. The geography is just wrong - Europe will indeed be dominated, but it can't be America's sandbox because there are too many other rivals that also want to dominate it.
I think it'll play out with Byzantium camp where they get initially swallowed up, then jolt back to life and is which means some final burst in europe will jolt. I just don't think that time is as near as people say. I've thought about the geographic aspect as well. It should be kept in mind Texas is only 1/3 closer to Colombia than New York to Europe. Not to mention as long as there's a Washington DC and New York in power there will be Atlanticism. American institutions run deep in both Europe and Latin America on some key levels. I also looked at Russia's own demographic structure and it is...not looking good. Especially after this war. Russia while certainly formidable did get bogged down in trench warfare and did expose some deep internal issues. It's worse than Europe proper for birth rates. Meaning that bar groups such as the Arabs or Africans, Europe actually doesn't have a whole lot of threats unless there's a large African migration expansion. I personally do not think the US will be nearly as rapacious to Europe as it was to Latin America, due to what you mention with geography due to this contest factor but also due to a factor of the US as aging itself as well as the stain it left on America the first time. What you'll see is more of the prestigious aspects of Europe get offloaded to the US, deindustrializatuon in europe, US becomes the center of europe continued, then some outside force tears it all down or as the empire truly enters decay. You also won't see coups and banana republics either.
I do however expect the US to be jettisoned from Asia due to there being exterior pushback though for the very reason you state however and your statement is absolutely spot on for that. Don't worry, this is pretty much my only dabble into current geopolitics, but it needed to be stated due to the greco-roman parallels and how this will affect the final years of the American Empire. I'm also noticing a lot of...aridoamerican aspects bubbling up there. Some enviromentalists in the netherlands brought a native american to a protest and talking about indigenization, something that is much more Aridoamerican than european.
Ultimately, what you'll see is retrenchment and a US mostly gone from most of Asia and the Global South. America will hold the empire on these lines for a time, and then lose europe. I don't think its eternal at all.